Product Manager, Platform

At Learning Commons, we pair technology with grantmaking to scale proven teaching and learning practices to benefit every learner. We aim to translate what learning science tells us about how students learn best into classroom practice. With the advent of generative AI, that translation work can be accelerated and scaled to have a greater impact. 

Our mission is to bring learning science into the tools used every day by teachers and students, ensuring that technology reflects the realities of classrooms and strengthens teaching and learning.

In today’s fragmented edtech landscape, school districts are often left piecing together products that don’t always align with curricula or instructional needs. While AI holds enormous potential to support educators, it can only deliver on that promise when grounded in research, high-quality educational data, and expert evaluation. That’s why we’re building open, public-purpose infrastructure — datasets, rubrics, and resources — that help raise the standard for educational tools and create more consistent, impactful learning experiences for all students and teachers.

At our core, we are builders, and our unique builder philanthropy approach is what sets us apart from other education funders. Take a closer look at the highlights and significant milestones of CZI’s first eight years of education work.

Educators are already using AI-based tools in various ways—including generating lesson plans, creating classroom materials such as tests and assignments, and helping differentiate instruction for students. At Learning Commons, we are inspired and excited about the possibilities and promise of AI to accelerate the availability of research-backed practices at scale. We are actively and thoughtfully exploring how to incorporate AI into products in close partnership with researchers, experts, and educators.
As a Product Manager, Platform on the AI Developer Tools team, you will join our Core Platform team at a pivotal moment—as we launch our MVP Developer Platform to support our AI-powered developer tools ecosystem. You'll be the product partner for a high-performing engineering team (1 EM, 1 Tech Lead, 4 Engineers) that has strong agile practices and is now focused on building critical platform infrastructure. This is a ground-floor opportunity to shape platform strategy from MVP to scale, working on foundational capabilities like Identity/Authentication/Authorization, API Gateways, MCP server, and observability. You'll balance technical platform health with velocity, ensuring internal teams (Knowledge Graph, Evaluators, Developer Experience) can ship quickly without being blocked. This role offers hands-on platform PM experience and clear growth opportunities as the platform scales.

• Execute platform roadmap and sprint planning – Prioritize platform features and technical investments based on internal customer needs, working closely with engineering to plan and execute 2-week sprints using agile methodologies
• Build strong internal customer relationships – Conduct regular discovery sessions with Knowledge Graph, Evaluators, and Developer Experience teams to understand their platform needs, gather feedback on MVP features, and iterate rapidly
• Ship platform capabilities iteratively – Launch and refine Identity/Auth, API Gateway, MCP server, and observability features through frequent releases; track adoption and identify blockers to internal team migration
• Define platform success metrics and SLAs – Establish metrics for platform health, reliability, adoption, and internal customer satisfaction; create service level expectations and support processes for platform issues
• Enable cross-team platform adoption – Collaborate with 5 product managers across the organization to ensure platform capabilities meet their needs; document APIs, auth flows, and platform services for internal consumption

• 3-5 years of product management experience with a track record of shipping products, preferably with exposure to platform, API, or infrastructure work
• Technical fluency – Comfortable discussing APIs, authentication/authorization, system architecture, and infrastructure concepts with engineers; ability to understand technical tradeoffs and translate them into product decisions
• Strong stakeholder management skills – Proven ability to collaborate with multiple cross-functional partners, prioritize competing requests, and build trust through transparency and consistent delivery
• Execution excellence – Experience working in agile environments (sprints, Jira, standups); ability to write clear specs, user stories, and acceptance criteria that help engineering teams ship with confidence
• Customer-centric mindset – Passion for understanding user needs (in this case, internal developer teams), gathering feedback, and iterating based on validated learning; commitment to education and mission-driven work

The Redwood City, CA base pay range for a new hire in this role is $190,000 - $261,800. New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range, enabling employee growth in the range over time. Actual placement in range is based on job-related skills and experience, as evaluated throughout the interview process. 

As we grow, we’re excited to strengthen in-person connections and cultivate a collaborative, team-oriented environment. This role is a hybrid position requiring you to be onsite for at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week, with specific in-office days determined by the team’s manager. The exact schedule will be at the hiring manager's discretion and communicated during the interview process.

We’re thankful to have an incredible team behind our work. To honor their commitment, we offer a wide range of benefits to support the people who make all we do possible. 

• Provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice. 
• Funding for select family-forming benefits. 
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving

If you’re interested in a role but your previous experience doesn’t perfectly align with each qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply as you may be the perfect fit for this or another role.

#LI-Hybrid